Bespoke Biopôle:

Building connections, connecting spaces

Spaces

Biopôle is a campus that doesn’t stand still. The first building was inaugurated in 2009 and the site has been growing steadily since. The current total of eight buildings have been in place since 2020 and there are a further five in construction, with the Leucine building due to open its doors in 2023. With this ever-expanding campus, the options for workspaces are abundant – so if you want to move your operations to Biopôle, where do you start? We met Olivier Philippe, Biopôle SA’s Corporate Relations and Business Development Director, to guide us through what the site has to offer in terms of access to the spaces, networks and opportunities that make up Biopôle’s unique ecosystem

Ever-evolving needs

When CEO Nasri Nahas arrived at Biopôle SA in 2015, the campus had only one type of space to offer: a private office and/or lab with a minimum area of 300 m2 – more suited to corporate headquarters than a fledgling start-up or temporary project. Part of the new CEO’s strategy was to really understand the needs of life sciences start-ups and established companies to offer flexible space options that would work for them.

In late 2022, Biopôle SA began construction work to expand the premises of the StartLab laboratory; this will be completed in March 2023. The development aims to further assist StartLab companies to grow and to meet increasing demand for shared serviced laboratories on site.

Nothing to sell, much to offer Biopôle SA has no spaces to sell – it doesn’t own the buildings so it isn’t hunting for tenants. Instead, Biopôle SA is here to support. It helps people grow their companies, get set up and take advantage of the networks and resources on campus, in the region and beyond. As Olivier points out : ‘We’re rather like an ecosystem builder on a quest to create a major pole of excellence in life sciences.’

What lab space is available?

At Biopôle, a company that needs lab space has three options: StartLab, ‘the serviced coworking lab’, Superlab ‘the serviced private lab’ or a bespoke space.

Besides its vibrant ecosystem, one of the key things the Biopôle campus offers is a space in which to work, and there are plenty of options to choose from, based on the size of the company – from a single desk in a co-working space to several floors of a building. Only one major requirement was set at the creation of the campus: the companies must be active in life sciences.

StartLab is unique in Switzerland: a shared facility suitable for launching a small project, a new start-up or a period of transition. Opened in 2018, it currently offers lab infrastructure and equipment, with 64 benches tailored to wetlab life sciences research, plus accompanying office space and front office management. Olivier describes it as the ‘plug and play’ option. At the end of 2022, StartLab was expanded, in response to raising demand, from 1,000 to 1,500 m2. As well as more space, new equipment and amenities were introduced; for example, a biosafety Level 2 lab, a fab-lab, a bigger cafeteria and more meeting rooms.